Translators Who Risked Their Lives For American Troops Are Getting Screwed By The US

Afghan interpreter Janis Shinwari onced saved an American
soldier's life in a firefight and faces death threats from the
Taliban due to his service to the U.S. military.

Shinwari, like most Iraqi and Afghan interpreters, was promised a
Special Immigrant Visa after serving one year in his translation
duties. Two weeks ago, he finally got approved — only to have his
new visas for him and his family later revoked with no
explanation.

I spent the next few days calling the US embassy in Kabul and
State Department to no avail. After total silence, they finally
told me that his visa was revoked for reasons they could not
legally address. I investigated further and had my worst
suspicions confirmed: in the two weeks since the State Department
issued his visa, an anonymous "informant" contacted the US
government and claimed all sorts of things about Janis. The
informant's bogus claims eventually reached an analyst at the
National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) in Washington DC who
promptly put a security hold on Janis' visa, prompting the State
Department to revoke it all together.

It's fairly common for the Taliban to read the US news. I can't
help but think that they learned of our successful efforts to
secure Janis his visa via the extensive
coverage our efforts generated. They used to call our
base in Afghanistan and
claim all sorts of lies about our interpreters in an attempt to
get us to fire them. The Taliban are almost certainly the source
of the anonymous tip and now they have more time to hunt him and
his family down and kill them.

Unfortunately, the story of Shinwari is not unique. Just last
month, former Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer, a recipient of the Medal
of Honor, penned
an opinion piece in the Washington Free Beacon about his own
interpreter Fazel, who couldn't get his visa approved despite
being recommended by just about everyone in the chain of command,
including the top U.S. commander.

“For four years, he has avoided assassination," Meyer wrote
of Fazel, who he also credited with saving American lives. "But
eventually his luck will run out. He risked everything to bring
back four trapped Americans, and we have turned our back on
him.”

"Thousands of people are now threatened on a daily basis by
people with very long memories," said Rep. Earl Blumenauer
(D-Ore.)
on the House floor on Thursday. Blumenauer has been trying to
get Congress to act on the issue, as the authorization for
immigrant visas for Iraqis who helped the U.S. expires in four
days.

"If they had wanted to harm us, they had countless
opportunities to lead people down the wrong path — to attack,
assault, mislead — but, by all accounts, thousands of these
people performed critical tasks faithfully, if not flawlessly,"
he said.